


Shots in the Dark

by a_case_for_wonder



Series: Royai Week 2020 [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, Post-Promised Day, Royai Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24624514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_case_for_wonder/pseuds/a_case_for_wonder
Summary: “He’s gone, you pathetic girl.” Lust wraps one delicate, pale hand around the nose of her gun, not even flinching at the contact with what must be smoking hot metal. Riza shoots. The bullet blasts off part of Lust’s hand, only for it to regrow wrong, a set of long black claws that reach out and grab Riza by the throat. “You might as well give up now, Captain.”She fires, and fires, and fires, Lust’s face a wet blur in her vision, screaming with breath she can barely expand her lungs enough to take. Lust’s fingers just squeeze tighter. “Goodbye, Captain.” Captain.Captain.“Captain!”Royai Week 2020 Day 2: Little Pistol (Mother Mother)
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Series: Royai Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785040
Comments: 8
Kudos: 72





	Shots in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> There's a whole lot going on in this song, huh? But the first thing I imagined was it basically playing over the scene where Riza just empties every gun she has into Lust...
> 
> I've gone back to my fic comfort zone for this one, aka "characters talk around their feelings in the middle of the night." Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Graphic Depictions of Violence warning is for a couple brief but fairly explicit descriptions of gunshots/gunshot injuries

Riza’s trigger finger aches. She’s lost count of the number of shots she’s fired into Lust’s laughing face. Is this the second gun she’s pulled? The third? Fourth? How many does she have, again? Her whole body is one dull mass of pain, collapsed on her side on the floor of the tunnel. She can barely feel the arm she’s fallen on, can just see the puddling blood where she’s skinned her shoulder on the concrete, no heavy wool to protect her. Her arms are twisted out in front of her, a painful, numbing angle that would make a difficult shot for anyone else, even the Hawk’s Eye. But she does hit. Bullet after bullet, her ears ringing constantly with the crack of it off the close, hard walls. And yet. 

Lust just laughs, stalking closer. Riza fires. Kneecap. Thigh. Stomach. Heart. She pulls the trigger again and again, delirious, desperate. None of it does a damn thing. Throat. That at least puts a hitch in Lust's step, for a second. Then Lust just wipes the blood from her mouth with a delicate flick of her wrist, smiling down at Riza with teeth stained orange-pink. 

“It won’t do any good, Lieutenant. Your bullets are useless against our might. Even the Colonel’s precious flames didn’t do him much good, once I stabbed through his stomach a few times.” 

“No.” Riza forces herself up on an elbow. _No no no no no no._ “Colonel!” She fires again. How dare he. He’s not allowed to- not allowed to- not without her, goddamnit! “Colonel!” 

“He can’t hear you where he is,” Lust purrs. She kneels down. There shouldn’t be any bullets left in Riza’s gun, but it’s still firing so she’s still pulling the trigger. Something. Anything. 

“Colonel Mustang!” She fires a shot through Lust’s chest at point-blank range. Hot blood sprays in her face, and she watches as the flesh explodes is a mass of blood and strange black tendons, shattering and then knitting back together in just seconds. 

“He’s gone, you pathetic girl.” Lust wraps one delicate, pale hand around the nose of her gun, not even flinching at the contact with what must be smoking hot metal. Riza shoots. The bullet blasts off part of Lust’s hand, only for it to regrow wrong, a set of long black claws that reach out and grab Riza by the throat. “You might as well give up now, Captain.” 

She fires, and fires, and fires, Lust’s face a wet blur in her vision, screaming with breath she can barely expand her lungs enough to take. Lust’s fingers just squeeze tighter. “Goodbye, Captain.” Captain. 

_Captain._

_“Captain!”_

Riza jerks up with a start, right hand scrabbling for her weapon only to find it still holstered at her hip. Her hand knocks into something solid on their way - her desk. She’s- she’s not in the tunnels. She’s-

“You’re in our office, in the new command outreach center in Ishval, Captain Hawkeye,” a voice says, low and firm. She raises her eyes, hand trembling around her holstered weapon. 

Brigadier General Roy Mustang stands above her, hands wrapped where he leans on the edge of her desk. Her eyes dart around frantically, cataloguing her surroundings: two cups of coffee still steaming on a cheap desk; plywood floors; overflowing file cabinets because the requisition order for more hasn’t gone through yet. Outside the window, the sun has long set over the desert, leaving only a precious few lights amongst the rich black of night. She forces herself to take a deep slow breath as it comes back to her. Ishval. They’re in Ishval, keeping their promises, rebuilding. Mustang went to make coffee. She must have fallen asleep while he was gone. 

She forces herself to sit up straight, adjusting her uniform jacket until it hangs properly over her weapon once more. “I apologize, sir. I must have been more tired than I thought.” She pulls the coffee with milk towards herself, but doesn't try to lift the heavy ceramic just yet. Not when her hand is still shaking. “Thank you for the coffee.” 

It’s a dismissal, the kind she’s been at leave to give him for years. He doesn’t go. “Captain. It’s late. Maybe you should get some rest.” He tries on a tired sort of smile. “I still have a few things to finish, but I promise I won’t disappear without you.” 

She flinches, and she knows he must see it. She goes to stand, reaching for the edge of the desk with her left hand, only to find the whole arm’s gone to sleep from the way she was laying on it, numb shoulder to fingers. Her heart picks up, panic crawling from her stomach up into her throat without her say-so, her breath quickening. She needs both arms to shoot. She needs her arms to protect him when-

“Captain Hawkeye,” his voice still barely rises above talking volume, but he’s always been able to command when he needs to. This isn’t that, quite. “Look at me. Hey.” There are firm hands on her shoulders, she can just feel the pressure of the left one deep in the joint. “Are you with me?” 

She manages a tight nod, breathing haltingly. When she tries to back away from his grip, she stumbles, and before she quite knows what’s happening she’s being guided back, the two of them sliding down together, hunkered in the space between her desk and the plywood wall. His arm wraps around her shoulder, rubbing at her upper arm, still mostly numb, and she whimpers despite herself. His hand stills. 

“Hawkeye?” They still aren’t brave enough for first names, even now, even here, but in moments like these he pushes this far. “What is it?” 

She takes a deep hitching breath. _Stop being silly, Riza._ “My arm’s asleep, sir. That’s all. Nothing for you to worry about.” _I’m alright._

“I’ll worry about my subordinates exactly as much as I see fit.” _No, you aren’t._ He sighs, and his arm withdraws from her shoulder, leaving her adrift for a moment until both his hands grab up her left one, massaging at her numb fingers and palm, her pin-prickled wrist. Something tightens in her chest, a hot pressure that isn’t quite pain. She closes her eyes and leans her head against the rough wall. She won’t cry in front of him. She won’t.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

He knows her well enough to know the answer to that, she supposes. He also knows her well enough to know that fighting through the urge to hold everything in usually helps. She gives into the hour, their aloneness, and leans slowly to the side, resting her head gently against his shoulder. At least she doesn’t have to look him in the eye. 

“I just kept shooting her,” she whispers. Mustang tenses around her - he hardly needs to ask who. “I must have emptied ten guns’ worth of bullets into her, and she wouldn’t go down. She just kept laughing at me. And you didn’t- this time you weren’t-” She closes her mouth into a hard line. “I gave up, sir. I’m sorry. You were gone and I just couldn’t-” 

“-Captain.” he cuts her off, hands abandoning her still tingling left arm to wrap more completely around her shoulders, drawing her in. She wants to protest. Every time they cross this line, it gets harder and harder to go back. She shivers as he presses his mouth gently to the top of her head. She buries her face in the crook of his neck and pretends she isn’t getting tears all over his collar. “It’s alright. It was just a dream. You have nothing to apologize for. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. Right?” 

She sniffs, giving in a little further, sliding her own arms around his waist. She’s starting to regain feeling in the left one, and she holds on tight. It will feel impossible to go back in the morning, but right now she needs this more. “Yes, sir,” she manages. 

One of his hands cups the back of her head, thumb running lightly over her hair. There isn’t anything left to say. Part of Riza wishes she could stay here forever, tucked in this warm little bubble of just the two of them, in the cramped space behind her desk, in a slap-shod office in the middle of a half-ruined desert country. She knows that outside the window, the stars shine brighter here than they do anywhere else she’s ever been. 

“Someday,” he promises quietly, words whispering through her hair, “I’m going to hold you like this, and neither one of us will be crying, or drunk, or bleeding, or- hell, anything.” His hold on her tightens, almost painful, and her grip does the same in response. At times like this, _love_ seems an almost inconsequential word for what they are to each other. He’s part of her, as much as any of her organs. She can’t imagine existing without him. Doesn’t want to. “That’s a promise, Hawkeye. I’m here.” 

For all their damage, he hasn’t broken one of his promises to her yet. Riza holds on tight, and does the best thing she knows how to do: she believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I really enjoyed writing this! Kudos/Comments much appreciated, I would love to know what you think!


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